Asia Times: Gusmao's journey from wharf worker to 'presidente'



	September 28, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Gusmao's journey from wharf worker to 'presidente'

DARWIN, Australia - Xanana Gusmao, whose face adorned the ''Free Xanana'' posters plastered by activists in downtown Darwin for many years, is finally a free man.

By an act of fate, Gusmao happened to spend his first days of freedom in this northern Australian city which has become the staging point for the 8,000-strong multinational United Nations peacekeeping force for East Timor.

For many East Timorese in Darwin, their old comrade Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao had returned. This is his second sojourn in the city. Some 25 years ago, he worked here as a wharf laborer before returning to East Timor to join the ASDT party, the precursor to the Fretilin resistance force.

''It was just great seeing Xanana. The aura has extended to everyone in Darwin - even to the Northern Territory government,'' said Rob Wesley-Smith, a Timor activist for the past 25 years. Gusmao and an entourage, including three bodyguards, fled to Darwin early last week to escape death threats in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. He had earlier taken refuge in the capital's British Embassy after authorities released him after seven years on September 7.

Tired, homesick East Timorese refugees in Darwin gave the president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) and commander-in-chief of the Falintil resistance a hero's welcome. Shouts of ''Viva Presidente!'' rang out for the independence leader who is widely expected to be East Timor's first president.

''I'm very sad to meet here, so far away from our homeland,'' Xanana said at a refugee camp in Darwin's Marara suburb last week. Later at a dinner in his honor, the independence leader could not hide his grief. ''We are being destroyed as a nation. We are being killed as a people. Many wives don't know where their husbands are; many children don't know where their fathers are.

''It's the destiny of the East Timorese people. It's our destiny to suffer, to fight - to suffer again and again.''

On September 15, the UN Security Council endorsed ''all necessary measures'' to halt the orgy of killing and destruction in the former Portuguese colony by pro-Jakarta and anti-independence militias after the East Timorese people voted for independence in the August 30 UN-supervized ballot.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that at least 7,000 people died in the violence and that between 300,000 and 400,000 of the territory's 850,000 people fled their homes or were forced into neighboring West Timor by the Indonesia-controlled militias. Other sources indicate the death toll could be as high as 20,000.

''After the August 30 ballot, we felt free for just a moment. But we could not celebrate. We had to cry and are still crying because the violence in East Timor has increased,'' said Gusmao. In his first public comments since the international force moved into East Timor, he thanked the international community and its forces for intervening to stop the bloodshed.

''I promise, myself, for the following period that we will do everything to help the multinational forces pursue what the East Timorese people are wanting: peace and tranquility in our country,'' he said. ''We hope with the help of the international community, the cycle of violence in East Timor will end. Together we will build a global country - a small one; a tiny territory that we will hold dear to our hearts. That nation will be our beloved country.''

Gusmao was appointed head of Fretilin in 1978 after Nicolau Lobato was killed by the Indonesian armed forces. He was elected commander-in-chief of the Falintil forces in 1981. On November 20, 1992, he was captured by the Indonesian military and taken to Jakarta where he was sentenced to life imprisonment, later commuted to 20 years.

Despite his imprisonment, world leaders had requested meetings with him during visits to Jakarta. Former South African President Nelson Mandela met him for two hours in July 1997, an historic visit that dramatically raised international awareness of the situation in East Timor.

In Darwin, Gusmao scotched the idea of setting up a provisional government in exile, which would cut across the UN's framework for East Timor's independence.

''We want a framework for the UN to set up an administration during the phase that will lead up to independence,'' he said, adding that he would return to East Timor as soon as possible to establish an administration with UN help.

''I have no private plane. I have no ships. I cannot be more specific because that will depend on many factors,'' he said. He acknowledged that concern for his safety in East Timor was one of the factors. ''I'm here as a guest of the Australian government, with one intention: to rebuild my nation and first and foremost, to unite my people.''

The man who could be East Timor's president has to lead the rebuilding of his country from scratch, a task so daunting that he has asked for a War Crimes Tribunal to be put on hold until some progress can be made on the ground.

''We will have many difficulties, not only to rebuild everything but to prepare ourselves to heal many wounds,'' Gusmao said. He added: ''We will, in our revenge on Indonesia, help them understand that all human beings in the world have a right to life, a right to do something good to others and not to kill. And that will be our revenge.''

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.